“Roxy & Elsewhere” - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Here’s another live album from the ‘73/’74 time frame. I wasn’t much of a Zappa fan until I heard this record, and again I’m not sure when or where that first listen occurred. This was a fun album to listen to and always seem to make it to the turntable in a party atmosphere. Zappa’s approach to rock and roll was certainly unique and an acquired taste. Roxy & Elsewhere is a great place to start if you want to understand Zappa’s genius.

As a guitar player he was good as any at the time. As a composer and band leader he was head and shoulders above the rest. You couldn’t put Frank in any particular musical box. He was all over the place and often hard to digest. He combined rock, jazz, fusion, orchestral, and just noise, into a melting pot of improvisation that few musicians/bands had ever attempted before or since (with respect to Sonic Youth). His shows where as much theater as they were music. This album is very good at painting that theatrical picture for the listener. “Be-Bop Tango” which occupies all of side four, is a perfect example of this. You can definitely visualize the poor fools who were beckoned onstage to take part in Zappa’s script.

Zappa was possibly the most prolific musician of 60’s/70’s/80’s and early 90’s, releasing over 60 albums. Beside recording and performing with the Mothers, he composed and performed rock/orchestral pieces with London Symphony Orchestra, and scored several avant-garde films (see 200 Motels). He famously stood against censorship and on September 19, 1985 testified before the Congress opposing Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore) and her organization to “label” albums with explicit lyrics or themes. Ultimately laws were passed that resulted in the “Parental Advisory” stickers on albums after ‘85. Zappa continue to push the limits of what was acceptable in rock music with his biting satire and politics, right up until his untimely death from prostate cancer on December 4, 1993. An incredible legacy remains and Roxy & Elsewhere provides a good lens into this fascinating musician, performer, family man/father, and committed political activist.